Oregon State solidified spot in top 10 with UCLA upset
ESPN.com
As mothers who get teary-eyed at Labor Day and welcome overstuffed laundry bags at Thanksgiving can attest, college is all about leaving home to find out who you are and where you're headed. Whether it's a few miles down the street or a few thousand miles across the country, the journey offers a chance to prove yourself away from the security of your supporters.
So it's fitting that Oregon State's ninth-ranked softball team had to venture away from home to enjoy arguably the best weekend in the program's history.
Facing the most arduous road trip in the Pac-10 -- which included a game against No. 1 UCLA in Los Angeles on Friday and a pair of games against No. 14 Washington in Seattle on Saturday and Sunday -- Oregon State's prospects looked a little bleak. After all, the Beavers split a midweek set with Portland State after getting swept out of the Bay Area in three games against Stanford and Cal two weeks ago (last weekend's series with Oregon was postponed by weather).
But after not only winning all three games but also tossing a pair of shutouts in the process, the Beavers ought to be as close to feeling on top of the world as it's possible to be in the middle of the Pac-10 season.
The wins against No. 14 Washington were important, both in demonstrating the team's focus and toughness on short rest and in burying the Huskies in a deep conference hole. But the win against UCLA in Los Angeles, where the Beavers were outscored 14-1 in two games last season, was the kind of attention-grabbing victory that could do almost as much for the program's reputation as last season's Pac-10 championship (Oregon State shared the title with three teams but received the automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament).
A finalist for national player of the year honors, junior Brianne McGowan was the star of the show over the weekend, throwing 16 shutout innings in earning three wins in the circle and adding a home run at the plate. Cambria Miranda offered plenty of offensive support, totaling five hits, five runs and five RBI in the three games.
Oregon State's weekend proves the team belongs firmly in the top 10. And heading home for the next eight games, beginning with a make-up doubleheader against Oregon on Wednesday, the Beavers now can go about attempting to prove they belong with the Bruins at the top of the standings.
Big 12
There's a tendency to seek out conclusions in print, sometimes even at the expense of the greater story. Maybe it's the black and white of typed letters that drives a subconscious need to neatly sum up the situation with a succinct sentence. Or maybe it's just a reflection of the games themselves, where a pitch is either a ball or a strike and a team either wins or loses.
But the whole story is often more complicated than two columns for wins and losses. Occasionally, it's even more complicated than the five or six columns that hockey standings sometimes seem to require.
Just ask the 17th-ranked Texas A&M Aggies.
The Aggies bounced back from a disappointing midweek home loss to No. 19 Baylor (and a split with a very unranked Iowa State team last weekend) to sweep two games from Missouri, including an 8-0 romp that required just five innings in Sunday's finale. The wins pushed the Aggies to 11-4 in Big 12 play, setting up a big game against Texas on Wednesday (ESPNU, 7 p.m. ET) in a series that needs little help bringing out the fiercest competition in both rivals.
With a win against the Longhorns, something they've already managed once in splitting the teams' two prior games this season, the Aggies would remain in the mix for the top seed entering the Big 12 tournament. Perhaps more important, it means that Texas A&M could be one of 16 teams hosting NCAA regional games. That's big news for a team that is 16-4 at home and always draws well in College Station.
But conference standings, postseason permutations and rivalry watches don't tell the whole story for a team that appears to be testing whether it can speed up the schedule on an undeniably bright future. That was apparent in Saturday's 4-2 win, when the Aggies jumped on Missouri starter Jen Bruck for four runs in the first inning, only to watch their bats fall silent as pitcher Megan Gibson danced in and out of trouble for the rest of the game.
Gibson and staff ace Amanda Scarborough, who won Sunday's game and likely will get the ball against Texas, are both sophomores. So is third baseman Jamie Hinshaw, who, along with double-duty threats Gibson and Scarborough, constitutes the heart of the order. In fact, outfielder Rocky Spencer is the team's only senior, and seven freshmen or sophomores start on a regular basis.
It's not an entirely inexperienced group -- the two pitchers combined to win 39 games in the circle and hit .405 with 29 home runs as Texas A&M won the Big 12 last season -- but it is a young group. With youth comes days like Saturday, when Gibson surrendered nine hits and a walk to a team ranked in the bottom of the conference in offense. But with talent comes escapes like Saturday, when Gibson struck out 10 while allowing just one earned run and stranding 10 Missouri runners.
Youth served up a win against Texas and a loss against Iowa State. And youth put Texas A&M on the wrong end of a 20-0 composite in two early nonconference games against Arizona, followed by a 1-0 win against Alicia Hollowell and the Wildcats on March 16.
The sweep of Missouri puts Texas A&M back on track after a roller-coaster week and sets up an enticing showdown on Wednesday night. But with so much youth and so much talent, we may not know the real conclusion to the story for quite some time.
As Texas coach Connie Clark pointed out after Sunday's 1-0 loss, the Longhorns' weekend set against Kansas brought together the teams with the two best ERAs in the Big 12. But those cold statistics won't be much comfort to Texas fans after their second-ranked Longhorns managed just four total hits in splitting a pair of 1-0 games. On the positive side, shortstop Desiree Williams managed to extend her hit streak to eight games with half of the team's hit total, and Amber Hall continued the team's power surge with a home run to win Saturday's game. Only Kansas (which was shut down by typically outstanding pitching from Cat Osterman and Meagan Denny) and Baylor have more home runs than Texas this season among Big 12 teams.
Proving it has the overall game to go with that power, Baylor kept the heat on the conference leaders, following up the midweek win against Texas A&M with a sweep of overmatched Oklahoma State in two weekend games. Staff ace Lisa Ferguson, who entered the weekend with the conference's fourth-best ERA at 1.47, struggled through two off performances, but her teammates backed her up with five home runs in the two games.
Pac-10
Cal salvaged something out of a rough weekend by beating Arizona on Sunday, but it was the Wildcats making the biggest statement in the Bay Area. With Caitlin Lowe back in the lineup and pitchers Alicia Hollowell and Taryne Mowatt throwing well, the Wildcats beat both Cal and Stanford before losing Sunday's finale. Arizona appears to be rounding into shape just in time, heading to UCLA on Friday to seek revenge for the Bruins sweeping two games in Tucson earlier this month.
A week after splitting a two-game series with in-state rival Arizona, No. 8 Arizona State followed the Wildcats' lead in taking two of three in the Bay Area. Katie Burkhart continues to pitch like an ace, running her conference record to 5-2 with a 1.77 ERA, but with three of the next four games against UCLA and Arizona on the road, the Sun Devils need Desiree Serrano (2-2, 4.50 ERA in conference play) to recapture some of her earlier magic in the circle. She showed flashes of that against Stanford on Saturday, taking the loss while allowing three earned runs on six hits, but striking out seven against no walks in six innings.
SEC
Even Georgia is no longer impervious to the SEC's improving balance. On the surface, it doesn't sound especially noteworthy to say the No. 10 Bulldogs managed just one win in three games at No. 4 Alabama. After all, one win isn't a disastrous result on the road against a higher-ranked team. But Georgia isn't accustomed to playing by the rules of conventional wisdom, and the weekend's two losses brought an end to the program's remarkable run of 18 consecutive series wins in SEC play.
For the Crimson Tide, winning the series was big, but getting Stephanie VanBrakle back in the win column might be even bigger. After coming up on the short end of two pitching duels with LSU's Emily Turner last weekend, Alabama's ace was off her game on Friday, allowing eight hits and four earned runs in a no decision (Georgia eventually won the game 5-4). But VanBrakle bounced back on Sunday, allowing just three hits and one earned run to overcome three walks in winning the series clincher.
While Alabama and Georgia beat up on each other and LSU took the weekend off after sweeping Mississippi State during the week, Tennessee kept making a case for itself as the conference's hottest -- and potentially its best -- team. The Lady Vols took three from South Carolina during the week and matched that with three road wins against Mississippi State over the weekend, capped off by a 10-0 rout in Sunday's finale. Since dropping two games against Florida early in the month, Tennessee has won 12 consecutive games by a combined 61-10 margin. The true test will still be games against Georgia next weekend and Tennessee the week after, but Monica Abbott and the Lady Vols have taken care of business after a surprisingly slow start to conference play.
Big Ten
Teams calling the frozen tundra (all right, the chilly plains) of the Midwest home don't get to spend as much time on the diamond as their warm-weather peers early in the season. Lately, some of the Big Ten's powerhouses seem to be intent on catching up on lost time.
A few days after No. 12 Michigan needed 18 innings to beat Central Michigan, No. 16 Northwestern pulled out a 4-3 18-inning win against Minnesota. But while Michigan was able to split pitching duties equally between Jennie Ritter and Lorilyn Wilson, the Wildcats got the win thanks to one of the season's more remarkable pitching performances. In going the (marathon) distance against the Gophers, junior Eileen Canney tied the NCAA single-game record with 28 strikeouts.
With fellow pitcher Courtney Foster rested and ready, the Wildcats strengthened their grip on the top of the conference by beating Minnesota 4-2 in the second game. With four games next weekend against Michigan State and Michigan, Northwestern has a very real shot at bringing the conference tournament (hosted by the regular-season champion) to Evanston.
Notes
This time of year, it's easy to forget that softball is still being played by teams unlikely to be booking hotels for the first week of June in Oklahoma City. But from the picturesque field at Siena College in Loudonville, N.Y., to the big-sky backdrop of South Dakota State in Brookings, S.D., plenty of small and mid-major teams continue playing with no less passion than their ranked counterparts.
Of course, if any such program is ready to pull a George Mason on the diamond, it might be Hofstra. Or perhaps Gonzaga would be a better basketball analogy for a program that is no stranger to postseason success. The Pride have won eight NCAA Tournament games in the last three years, including coming within a game of advancing to Oklahoma City in 2004. Hofstra has won regular season or conference tournament titles every year since 1995 (first in America East, now in the Colonial Athletic Association), as coach Bill Edwards has constructed a powerhouse that lurks below the radar of just about everyone but the teams who have to play the Pride.
Over the weekend, Edwards won his 600th career game as Hofstra took two of three from James Madison to maintain its customary place atop the conference. And with freshman pitcher Kayleigh Lotti rounding into shape as a viable workhorse ace, conference foes may have already wasted their best shot at unseating the reigning champs.
So who knows, maybe all the schools that play outside of the spotlight won't have to rely solely on the powerful sticks of No. 13 Louisiana-Lafayette to get some representation at the Women's College World Series.
Graham Hays is a regular contributor to ESPN.com's softball coverage. E-mail him at Graham.Hays@espn3.com.
